A far different world with President Gore!

Remember how close the election in November 2000 for US President was?  It finally all came down to whether George W Bush or Al Gore would get the electoral votes from Florida.  At first some news media said Gore won, then Bush and finally that it was too close to call.   On November 26, the state canvassing board certified Bush the winner of Florida's electors by 537 votes!

Gore asked for a recount in 4 counties which was allowed by Florida law in close voting results.   However, doing a recount was contested and the US Supreme Court stepped in to stop the Florida election recount (in a 5 to 4 vote) which effectively gave George W Bush the presidency.

Since the Florida recount was stopped we do not know for sure who would have won.  In the months following there were a few unofficial recounts some which claim that Gore would have won Florida and thus the Presidency.

Giving Florida electoral votes to Bush gave him the Presidency despite the fact that Al Gore won the popular vote by approximately 500,000 votes nationwide.  Gore became the fourth candidate in American history to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote.  There is a movement to change to using the popular vote to determine the US presidency.  If this change had taken place before the 2000 election Al Gore would have been our President.

Thus the 43rd President of the United States was chosen by the Supreme Court, not by the people!

Often I ponder how different the world would be today if the people's choice, Al Gore, had become our 43rd President.  There are many others that have pondered this also [1 2 3 4].  My thoughts may share some of these views, however, my arguments are based on statements made by Al Gore [1 2 3] along with what historians and others have said about major events since January 2001.

• Iraq War

First, it is clear that President Gore would not have preemptively started a war with Iraq in 2002 as he was a big critic of Bush on this issue.  Vice President Cheney was the main force calling for the war [1 2 3].   Cheney was the most powerful vice president in US history [1 2 3] so he was able to convince President Bush who originally was against nation building.  Joe Lieberman who would have been Vice President if Gore was President also pushed for a war to remove Saddam Hussein but I doubt he would have had the clout nor the deceit that Cheney had to make this happen.

• Afghanistan War

Further if there was no the war with Iraq, troops would not have been pulled out of Afghanistan so quickly in 2002 and thus it is possible that they might have caught Bin Laden! [1 2]  With Bin Laden and many of his top advisors killed or captured, there would not have been a need for a long Afghanistan war!   Al Gore probably would not have set up Guantanamo Bay to hold enemy combatants.  He definitely would not have tortured people. There would not have been a Patriot Act that allowed the US government to violate our civil liberties.

• 9/11 terrorist attack

President Al Gore may actually have prevented the attack on September 11 2001 on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. As Vice President under President Clinton he was involved and supported President Clinton efforts to end terrorism.  The warnings were there to prevent it if we had had a competent president [1 2 3 4].  Can you imagine how different our world would be today if that attack had not occurred?  There would have been no major wars with Afghanistan and Iraq.  Hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive today.  There would probably be no democratic governments in these 2 countries.  But even today they are far from democratic governments with major divisions in Iraq and major corruption and voting fraud in Afghanistan.  Of course the World Trade Center buildings would still be standing and the people alive and still working there.

• Environment and Energy

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".  As president he would have pushed for laws and directed agencies to start immediately to address the climate change crisis:

1. Impose a "carbon tax" and create a cap-and-trade system.
2. Increase MPG requirements on all vehicles.
3. Moratorium on new coal-fired power plants.
4. Increase renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.
5. Develop new energy technologies.
6. Tax credits for energy efficiency.

Gore wanted the government to join "with Big Three automakers to create the Public/Private Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles to triple the fuel efficiency of vehicles without increasing cost or reducing quality or safety".  Later he would push for policies that would bring plug-in electric cars into the market as quickly as possible.

Gore would create a plan to shift America's energy focus away from fossil fuels to other forms of energy, such as solar, wind and geothermal. He called for America to free itself completely from fossil fuels within 10 years.

2011 is ten years after his presidency starts in 2001.  Even if he did not completely succeed in freeing our nation from fossil fuels, we would be a lot less dependent on foreign oil.   Our nation would be a leader in clean energy instead of way behind others.   Our new renewable energy companies would create jobs and export to the world, instead of now where we import from others.

• Economy

President Gore would not have cut taxes for the wealthy, but would cut taxes for those making under $100,000.  The result is that the federal debt would not have increased as much as under the Bush tax cuts.  Not fighting the Iraq war would save over 3 trillion dollars!  Fighting a shorter or no Afghanistan war would also save lots of money.

In his 2000 campaign he promised to balance the budget every year and pay off the national debt in 15 years.

The recession had many causes but "experts, from both political parties, say Bush's early personnel choices and overarching antipathy toward regulation created a climate that, if it did not trigger the turmoil, almost certainly aggravated it. The president's first two Treasury secretaries, for instance, lacked the kind of Wall Street expertise that might have helped them raise red flags about the use of complex financial instruments at the heart of the crisis. The White House, in the view of critics, fostered a free-market hothouse in which these excesses were able to flower. It avoided regulation of banks and mortgage brokers, leaving much of that work to the Federal Reserve, which, under Alan Greenspan, showed little appetite for regulation."

The recession probably would have occurred under President Gore, but it probably would not have been so severe.

• Healthcare

Gore outlined his plans for Health Care in the 2000 election - some highlights:
"I’d like to see some form of universal health care, but I’m not for a government-run system."
"Extend health insurance to the uninsured by expanding the State-Children’s Insurance Program (S-CHIP) to include both more children and also their parents."
"Change the Medicare rules to let Americans buy into the program with the help of a 25% tax credit, ten years earlier than they can now."

• Education

Gore was a strong advocate for improving the education system.  He wanted to:

+ introduce mandatory testing for teachers & salary bonuses for the most successful

+ offer preschool education to every 4-year-old by 2005

+ If a school is failing, work with the states to give them the authority and resources to close down that school and reopen it with a new principal, a new faculty.

+ 50% increase in our national commitment to education

• Science & Technology

Gore would have made the tax credit for research & development permanent.  He would have doubled federal research in information technology and medical research.

• Internet

As a senator Gore was a leader in creating the internet.  In 1988, he sponsored the National High-Performance Computer Act (which linked universities and libraries via a shared network) and then in 1992 the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act (which opened the internet to commercial traffic).  

Currently, the US ranks 28th in the world in internet connection speed.   President Gore would have pushed for high speed internet access for all homes.

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Thus the world would be quite different today if Gore had been president in 2000. Of course, all his plans would not have happen.  But he would have set our nation on a far different trajectory than Bush.

Under Bush we had two wars, a great recession, high unemployment, greater economic inequality and a huge debt that have forced us to change the direction of our nation.  Now as China takes the lead, our nation talks of cutting back on education, technology, healthcare, environment, etc.

But under Gore our nation would have continued to be the leader in technology and research.  We would take the lead in dealing with the climate change crisis.  People would have a better healthcare system.  Without the Iraq war and no big tax cuts for the rich, the federal debt would not be so great.  With better regulation of the markets, the recession would not be so bad.  Our kids would be better educated and healthier and could look forward to a brighter future for our country.

If just one of the five Supreme Court judges that had sided with Bush had instead allowed the recount to continue.  Or if there was no time for a recount, they could have considered the popular vote and made Gore our President based on whom the majority of the US citizens had chosen. (Isn't that what democracy is about?)

Quantum Theory suggests that there might be an infinite number of parallel universes. New universes are created when a decision must be made - one for each possible choice. So somewhere there is a universe that had a President Gore.

Now how do we jump from our universe to this alternate universe???

The Secret Enemy of Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which all citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.  USA like other democracies actually have a representative democracy where the citizens elect people to represent them in the government.  To be a real functioning democracy, most of us will agree that the citizens need two or more viable representatives to choose from during elections.  Thus we don't consider communist governments to be democratic even though they hold elections.

Obvious enemies of the democratic governments are governments such as dictatorships, autocracies, monarchs or oligarchies.  These governments are ruled by one person or a small group of people.  Despite having elections communist countries are really like oligarchies run by those at the top of the only official party - the communist party.

But there is another enemy of democracy that many are not aware of.  This group maintains the illusion of a democracy, but the government is actually an oligarchy.  They do this by promoting and controlling the representatives that the citizens elect.  They secretly fund the campaigns of those representatives that favor their views, pay for attack ads on those representatives that do not share their views, lobby the elected representatives providing pre-written bills and even do bribes.  They also take over the main news media outlets so that citizens will hear only a biased view which will effect who they vote for.  To do all of this of course takes lots of money and that is why those in power are the very rich.  A government run by the wealthy is called a plutocracy.

So this is the secret enemy of democracy.   The very rich are taking over democratic governments from within without the awareness of most of its citizens.

Rich overlords pull the hidden strings on our elected representatives.  We may think that our representatives are independent and even serve us but it is an illusion.

How do we prevent our democracy being converted to a plutocracy?  

• We need strong campaign finance laws that prevent the rich including their big corporations from dominating the campaigns.  Unfortunately, in 2010, the Supreme Court struck down the McCain-Feingold Act with the consequence that corporations now have NO limits on what they can spend on campaigns and further can do so anonymously.   Congress needs to pass new laws as soon as possible to close this door, before it is too late for our democracy.
• We need to further restrict the power of lobbyists.  Their meetings should be open to the public.
• Citizens must be aware of who pays for political ads, political groups and political think tanks.  For example, did you know that the Tea Party Movement is funded by the wealthy?  
• Citizens need to consider who owns the news media they listen or watch.  Fox News for example is tightly run by a very wealthy conservative?  Watch trailer on documentary OUTFOXED.
• Citizens need to think more carefully about who to vote for.  What policies are the candidates promoting and who will really benefit from them.   Some policies benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Some political groups are arguing that our problems are all caused by too much government.  But their solution involve reducing taxes which primarily benefit the rich and big corporations, cutting government regulations and privatizing our highways, Social Security, Medicare, etc.  Doing these things gives more money and power to our rich overlords while adversely affecting you, your family, your friends and your neighbors. Reducing taxes reduces federal revenue which will force the government to cut back on programs such as education, job training, road and bridge repairs, FBI, unemployment insurance, food safety, environmental agency, medicaid, medical research, alternative energy research, NASA, etc.  Reducing government regulations may result in more unsafe products and services, hidden costs (like in credit cards), poorer air and water quality, higher prices because of unregulated price manipulation and monopolies.  Privatization often result in higher costs, poorer services and lost of control - you will not be able to elect a different person to run things better.    

Citizens of democratic countries must constantly be vigilant against its enemies - inside as well as outside.  If citizens don't pay attention, the secret enemy of democracy will take over and it will be very hard to get our democracy back!

Blueberries - Brain Boosters

There was article in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Scientific American Mind titled "Your Brain on Blueberries" that talked about studies showing the benefits of blueberries to the brain. On the internet I found other articles on this topic such as "Blueberries + exercise = healthy minds?", "Blueberries", "Research Spotlight: Blueberries on the brain", "Blueberry Polyphenols Protect the Brain...".  Here are some highlights from these articles:

Polyphenol compounds specifically flavonoids found in blueberries and other food sources are thought to neutralize the effects of neurotoxins on the brain, suppress inflammation, and boost memory and cognition.  Examples of flavonoid-rich foods besides blueberries are red wine, tea and chocolate.  A subset of flavonoids termed anthocyanins has been found to have significant benefits in brain health and to hippocampal function in particular. Anthocyanins, found in brightly colored fruits such as berries protect your brain cells, optimize the communication dynamics between neurons, and promote the generation of new brain cells (neurons).

In one study, 9 adults older than 75 with mild memory loss drank 2 cups of wild blueberry juice every day for 12 weeks performed 30% better than a comparison group 7 adults who drank a juice resembling blueberry juice but without the flavonoid compounds.

In another study, 1836 participants that were dementia-free at the start of the study (1992-1994) were interviewed for their dietary habits and followed through the year 2001.  The study found a 76% lower risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease in the study group who drank fruit and vegetable juices at least 3 times in a week, versus the group who drank less than once per week.  Individuals who drank juices 1 to 2 times per week had a 16% lower risk.

Rats feed chow enriched with blueberry extracts for 8 weeks got an extra boost in motor functions - maintaining their balance in tests - compared to those eating non-enriched chow or even chow enriched with spinach or strawberries.

Feeding blueberries to mice slowed some age-related losses in memory and motor function.  The mice were fed the human equivalent of one cup of blueberries per day and showed a marked increase in memory, motor skills, and exploratory behavior.

After testing 24 varieties of fresh fruit, 23 vegetables, 16 herbs and spices, 10 different nuts, and 4 dried fruits, the US Department of Agriculture determined that blueberries scored highest overall in total antioxidant capacity per serving. Antioxidants are vital in countering free radicals, the harmful byproducts of cellular metabolism that can contribute to cancer and other age-related diseases.

Separate studies show that blueberries may help to lower blood cholesterol, promote urinary tract health, and reduce the risk of urinary infections.  Studies in Europe have documented the relationship between consumption of bilberries (the blueberry’s close European cousin) and eye health, highlighting the berries’ ability to improve night vision, halt cataract progression, and protect against glaucoma.  New studies also support blueberries’ ability to reduce age-associated lipid peroxidation, a contributor to cardiovascular disease, and to suppress the growth of several types of cancer cells suggesting that blueberry phytochemicals may well play a future role in human cancer treatment.

One researcher says "call the blueberry the brain berry".

Personally, I have planted a couple of blueberry bushes, drink about 1/2 cup of blueberry juice (Wyman's of Maine wild blueberry 100% juice) every day and buy fresh blueberries when I can find them in grocery stores.

I will let you know how it is working - if I remember!

If we all had cars like the Prius

Recently we bought a Toyota Prius hybrid.  Used mainly by my wife to go to and from work - a round trip of about 25 miles daily.  Her previous car, Toyota Camry, averaged about 24 mpg, worse in the winter.  Our Prius has been averaging about 48 mpg as the winter season is ending.  In short, she is using half the gas than she was using!  With other trips she averages about 9,000 miles per year.  At 48 mpg that is 188 gallons.  At $3.50 for regular gas that is $658 per year as opposed to $1316 with the Camry.  Over 10 years, the savings would be over $6500 - more if the price of gas keeps going up!

The Toyota Prius is a 4 door hatchback carrying up to 5 people.  It is a little smaller than the Camry.  The price starts at $23,000.  (A new Camry starts around $20,000.)  We paid around $27,000 with the extras and tax.

Yesterday, Toyota sold the 1 millionth Prius in the US.  They have been selling them here for about 11 years.  But I find most people do not know anything about them!

The Prius is powered by both a gasoline engine and an electric motor, gets an estimated 51 miles per gallon in the city and 48 on the highway. It is the most fuel-efficient car in the U.S. according to the Environmental Protection Agency. You do not plug it in (although a pluggable Prius is planned for 2012).  Its battery is charged up by the gas engine when it is running and by the electric motor acting like a generator when slowing down or braking. This is why the car gets great mpg in the city because it captures the energy normally lost every time one brakes.  Also, the gas engine will shut down when stopped at a traffic light and only comes back on when it is needed.  Click here for more information on the car from Toyota.

There are other hybrid cars besides the Prius.  Check out the Ford Fusion Hybrid it is rated 41/36 mpg city/highway by EPA.  Also look into the Lexus CT 200h (43/40), Honda Civic Hybrid (40/43) and Honda Insight (40/43).

U.S. Autos Account for Half of Global Warming Linked to Cars Worldwide.  Car are responsible for 35% of the overall carbon dioxide output.  So upgrading to cars that are much more efficient will make a big impact of the global climate change caused by humans.

In the US gasoline accounts for almost 45 percent of all oil use.  US uses about 21 million of barrels of oil per day, but domestic production is only 6 million.  Thus 9.45 million is used by cars.   Currently, the US imports most of its oil from North, Central and South America, but it does import about 2 million from the Middle East countries.  Thus if people were to switch to cars like the Prius we might reduce our imports by up to 4 million and US would no longer need oil from the Middle East.

Someday, hopefully, we will have reasonably priced electric cars with decent range between fast charges, but in the meantime there are numerous hybrids to choose from.

The benefits of switching to cars like the Prius: lower our gasoline costs, significantly help the environment and perhaps fight fewer wars over oil!

Dashboard showing 50 mpg consumption after driving around the suburbs.  Actual consumption which we calculate when we buy gas comes out a bit lower - around 48 mpg.

Distortions of Reality

We all know about the Great Wall of China, but they also have the "Great Firewall of China"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall_of_China).  The government monitors the internet usage and restricts what its citizens can see.  Iran and many countries have similar internet controls.  The result is the people in these countries have a distorted view of the world.  For example, most Chinese have little knowledge about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 or about Dalai Lama.

Even though we may think we are immune to this because of our freedoms, we also have distortions in our view of the world.  Most of the big news media outlets (e.g. Fox News, CBS, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, etc) are controlled by a few people at the top.  They determine which new stories out of hundreds are covered and how they are covered.   Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets directs them to put out stories with a very conservative bias.   He is ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes' The World's Most Powerful People list. With a net worth of $6.3 billion, he is ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world.  But he is not alone, the top people in big media are all rich people.  Consequently, the big media conveys the views of the rich.

They don't have to simply lie to us to control our views.  They can distort our views by confusing us.  For example, the scientific consensus is that global climate change is caused by humans, but most Americans are not aware of this because the media always finds someone to present an opposing point of view.  Why?  Because the rich (e.g Koch Industry) own the oil and coal companies which would be adversely affected by government regulations.

Currently, the media is focusing on the need to reduce the federal debt, even though we still have large number of people unemployed.   One way to reduce the federal debt would be to increase the tax on the rich and close loop holes on big corporations who avoid paying any taxes at all.  Even though numerous Congressmen have proposed bills to do this, most of the media does not even bother to mention this to us.   Instead, they cover proposals by other Congressmen to cut federal programs which would result in even more unemployed.  Why?  Because they are the rich that would be taxed and have loop holes closed on their companies.

You can see how the rich control the media and thus our view of the world.  And since we live in a democracy, our distorted views are translated into who we vote for.  The rich also can afford to spend lots of money on election campaigns and attack ads to further influence what we think and who we vote for.

Thus, like the Chinese, our reality is also being distorted - by the rich and powerful.